Waterbound
by Kami-no-Namida
Summary: Since a long time ago there had always been the light and the dark. There was no clear boundary between the two, just balance. Then came the Light and split itself from the Dark. That is where problems started. And not just Harry's. Not everything is what it seems to be at first glance. Dark doesn't necessarily mean evil. Water does not mean a flood. And destiny... might mean love?
1. The Oasis of Dark in the Sea of Light

Hi there (^^)/, here I am, keeping my tradition of starting a new story for my birthday ( _a week too late)_. The sixth one already. Time flies by, huh.

 **Warning:** Slash, Mpreg, Mentions of abuse, Me ignoring parts of canon... I will add more tags along the way. The  rating will eventually go up.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own any part of the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts universe, J. K. Rowling does... I just have the books and some merchandise. *sigh*

* * *

 **~ Waterbound ~**

 _ **Prologue**_

At first, there was only darkness.

Deep. Black. Encompassing everything. For years upon years, for _millennia_ , it was the only thing in existence.

Then came the light.

Bright. White. Taking over part of the realm of darkness, pushing it back some.

It seemed threatening to the dark, limiting its existence as it was.

However, it was not too long before those two fundamentals of the universe found a satisfying middle ground. Before they came to form an ever-present balance.

Light and dark.

Day and night.

The Sun and the Moon.

At all times either light or the dark was a bit more prevalent than the other, but neither was ever lost.

There was nothing that could snuff light out completely. That could destroy the last flicker that was hope.

There was nothing and no one who would think the darkness _wrong_ , as would later come to be the case.

The thing was, the problems did not start with _light_.

They started with the _Light_.

The _Light_ which started profiling itself against the _Dark_.

The _Light_ which created its own rules.

The _Light_ which did not care much for the balance tried and tested by thousands of years.

The _Light..._ which did not care for anyone but its own.

...

 ** _1\. The Oasis of Dark in the Sea of Light_**

That fateful day had started out just like any other.

The sun was shining.

The birds were singing.

Lucius Malfoy was starting his day with a cup of tea.

However even though for the majority of the day that normalcy had remained, by the time the sun was leaning towards the horizon a loud sound made it clear that the day was going to be anything but ordinary.

Something was happening.

"Lucius? Why is the Net wreaking up havoc but nothing is showing up on the map?" a voice echoed throughout the Malfoy manor, most likely enhanced by a _Sonorous_ charm.

It was not a voice one could dare ignore, much like its owner.

However important or not, _loud_ or not, by the time the voice rang through the manor, Lucius Malfoy was already on his feet. Having by-passed the image of never hurrying enough to run, it took the lord only a minute to reach the place both the sound and the voice had come from.

The library.

The library of the Malfoy Manor, where the centre of the so-called Net was.

The Net - or to be more accurate, The Network of Endangered Creatures - was a magical net, which encompassed the entirety of the United Kingdom. The Net itself was rather simple, compared to the difficulty the Malfoy lord had to go through to set it to work and it could be used in several ways; Searching out a specific, known creature; Finding a lost one; Keeping track of one sent on a mission...

The most important role of the Net, however, was the one that had given it its name.

Searching out creatures, who had found themselves in danger.

To aid said purpose the magical net was projected onto a map which was located in the aforementioned Malfoy library.

And in front of that map, Lucius Malfoy found the source of the voice which resonated through his home, waiting for his most trusted follower.

The Dark Lord Voldemort himself.

"Lucius?"

"Immediately, my Lord."

There was no time to be wasted and the Malfoy Lord quickly set to work on several complicated spells to use on the map, the expanse of parchment flashing colours which were everything but clear to understand.

"Given the tone of the alarm, someone had just come into their creature inheritance." Lucius started off his explanation, even as his wand still worked over the map. "The fact it continues to beep and the urgency of it means that the creature is in danger from their transformation. That means they either changed shape which does not agree with their current environment or that are in an environment which is directly harmful to them in their new form."

Lucius wished there was more he could say, but not only were there limits on how much he could get from the map's readings, there was a time limit as well.

The clock was ticking.

"The source of the problem is that _they_ are behind wards. _Strong_ wards. But their location is kept from the Net, and it is sending false locations all over the map."

The alarm kept on beeping, on getting more and more urgent with each minute that passed.

"My Lord if you could call upon Severus," the Malfoy lord asked, his movements harried much like his speech. "While not exactly amiable with most his students he should have general knowledge of who could be coming of age right now. If we had at least an inkling..."

"Rabastan! Your arm!" Voldemort cut the rest of Lucius' sentence off and it was only at the Dark Lord's order that the blonde realised that the continuing sound of alarm drew one more person into the library. It was a good thing really, given he was in the middle of a process where _more_ hands would be helpful, rather than having to relinquish the use of one, if only for a moment.

It took but a minute for the Potions Master of Hogwarts to appear.

"My Lord, what..."

"Severus! How many of your students are of the right age to be coming into their creature inheritance today?"

The man in question was efficient enough to not waste time in asking for a reason for such a question. The alarm which echoed through the manor still, combined with the map he landed in front of and had seen put into action many times, were both more than enough of an answer.

"The earliest some creatures present is at twelve years old. Not all of them turn precisely on their birthday but within a span of a month around the date. That being said, age-wise it would be about forty."

"Non-age-wise?"

"Thirty-four. Six muggleborns."

"Any not in England?"

"Two in Northern Ireland. Three in Wales. One in Scotland."

"That doesn't narrow it down any!" Lucius bit out angry as his movements swept in wide circles over the map. If he could narrow down the area, he'd be able to apply more of the energy of the Net on it and thus be _maybe_ able to see through the wards which were keeping the creature fighting for their life hidden.

"Twins from Northern Ireland just turned thirteen. Unlikely. Girl in Scotland. Fifteen. Less likely, but more than the twins, definitely. Only one of the three in Wales is turning sixteen during the holiday. Most likely of the six."

Even with being able to narrow down the area some - after a quick sweep through those less likely locations - the joined magic of the four countries of UK was still having trouble with pinpointing the newly turned creature somewhere in England.

... and the alarm only kept getting more and more insistent.

...

He couldn't breathe. **He couldn't breathe. WHY COULDN'T HE BREATHE!?**

He was trying to. So _so_ hard.

To no avail.

Why was the door so far away?

...

"Nothing in Northumberland. Nothing in Durham..."

There was something nerve-wracking on listening to Lucius Malfoy systematically going through the counties of England one by one. Severus couldn't imagine what it was like for the man. Being the one in charge of solving the situation.

"Lincolnshire. Nottinghamshire..."

The Malfoy Lord was about halfway through his sweep when the alarm stopped.

All of a sudden.

Everything went still and silent.

And then the alarm was sounded anew. Yet not the same.

It was less urgent than before. Longer stretches of time passed between one beep and the next.

"What happened?"

...

The water surrounded him whole... Never had he been so grateful to find himself in water.

"Thank you."

...

"What happened?" Rabastan repeated, not having left the library, despite knowing he could do little to help pinpoint the newly awakened creature. "Did he or she..." ' _die_?' was more than implied in that unfinished question.

"No." Lucius breathed a sigh of relief, uncharacteristically running his hand through his hair. "Someone must have gotten to them. They are still not out of the woods, hence the alarm still going, but the immediate danger is gone."

"What does it mean, Lucius?"

"It could be anything," Severus took over instead as he saw his friend's hands start twitching to complete the search. Motioning Lucius to get to it, the Potions Master resumed speaking. "For example, if the danger had been an assailant, the attacker had been taken out, but the creature is still in a dangerous area."

"Norfolk. Suffolk..."

"If the danger had something to do with a need of contact, someone had come for them. Some creatures are social to death. Quite literally, unfortunately enough. However, the alarm still being on would mean that while there is sufficient contact for immediate survival, there is not enough of others to completely stabilise them."

"Cornwall. Devon..."

"If it was a matter of environment, likely an immediate need of fire or water, the alarm change would mean that a temporary solution had been found."

"Damn it!"

The two Death Eaters and their master turned to the Malfoy lord, who furiously waved his wand over a considerably smaller portion of the map compared to what he started out with.

"They have to be in one of the home counties!" he cried out, before cursing again. "But even concentrating all the magic of the Net does not tell me which one! I only got as far as ruling out Essex. Damn it all!"

It was understandable for Lucius to be stressed out, Severus knew. But why was he behaving so strange?

"How hard can it be to find one child? Why are they so heavily warded?"

As the four men gathered around the map something clicked for one Severus Snape.

The so-called home counties, the areas surrounding London.

Someone who was born in the summer, in all likelihood at the end of July, it being the 31st of July after all.

Someone behind wards so strong even majority of the magic of the Net could not get to them, despite being powered by the Dark Lord himself.

London.

The remaining counties.

And in the centre of it...

Surrey.

'Born as the seventh month dies.'

"You have got to be kidding me." the Potions Master muttered to himself as he glared at the map.

"Severus?"

"Out of those thirty-four students, only four live in that area."

Thinking about it later, the Potions Master was surprised that neither of the gathered men thought of who the creature turned out to be.

They all knew of a child whose birthday was right in the middle of the summer, one who all of them knew was born sixteen years ago. But who would have thought...?

"And I think I know _exactly_ who it is."

Knowing full-well that three pairs of eyes were trained on him, Severus Snape did the only possible thing he could...

"I will return shortly."

He apparated.

* * *

 **Here it is, the first part. Thoughts? Constructive criticism welcomed!**

 **Sending a big Thank you! to every single person who decided to give this a try.**

 **See ya ("-.-)/**


	2. Echo of the Waterfall

**~ Waterbound ~**

 _ **2\. Echo of the Waterfall**_

 _Twenty minutes earlier, Little Whinging_

'Not even half an hour left,' Harry Potter thought to himself as he sat on the heap of ill-fitting boards he had to call his bed, watching the digital clock intently.

It used to be a tradition of his, to wait until midnight, when the 30th of July gave way to the 31st, but that year was different.

It was only last Christmas that Harry had found out that he was in fact born at eight o'clock in the evening of the 31st. And in honour of that discovery, the soon-to-be-sixteen-year-old boy sat, twenty hours later than he had every year, and waited for the clock to strike the true anniversary of his birth. Because that made more sense, right?

There was however little cheer that the boy found in cutting his wait short, even if staying awake only until eight easily beat the wait until midnight in his mind. And including the fact that it was taxing to remain awake anytime past dinner or non-dinner after a day filled with chores.

No.

Even the little gifts Harry had received throughout the day did little to cheer him up, however thoughtful and loving the gifts and the letters accompanying them were. For there were much darker thoughts on his mind that day. Ones that were hard to get rid of, when he was staring at their source.

'Born as the seventh month dies...' the young wizard could not help but repeat in his head, over and over again.

Because that was the crux of the problem, wasn't it? Being the one born on the 31st of July and in the evening on the top of that.

Because it was _that_ that had most likely differentiated Harry Potter from Neville - 'Gran said I was born so early she isn't sure if my birthday isn't actually the 30th' - Longbottom, when he had made his choice on who to go after that October night. Even if Harry did not think of that fact recently and not when he had heard that accursed prophecy.

As far as Harry knew, if Voldemort was anything, other than crazy, it was obsessed with details. If he had heard of two children born on the prophesized day, he would have researched both options, wouldn't he? And simple things such as birthdate and the time were information that could be looked up if one knew where to look. With how far and wide Voldemort's influence had been spread during his last reign, was it so much of a stretch to think he had had people in Saint Mungo's as well?

Thoughts like that helped little, but being alone as he was there was little he could do to banish it from his mind.

'Even Dursleys would be a welcome distraction by now.' a helpless chuckle escaped the boy.

But even that respite he was not to get. For it was a rare day in the Dursley residence, the day Harry Potter was left in it all by his lonesome. But Petunia Dursley could not afford to leave her unpaid gardener to not tend to her garden for even a day - nevermind three - when the competition was about to start, could she? It mattered little that she went on to spend all her weekend with her husband, or that Dudley was to be away most of the 31st because of a boxing training.

Be her reasoning whatever it was, Harry Potter stayed in the house alone and with free reign of the house.

It was an irony that the one day Harry could make himself meals worthy a king, or at least a growing boy, the food tasted like ashes when it hit his tongue.

A cruel, cruel irony.

At least he could replenish his stocks some - never with anything expensive or fresh - in the horrible eventuality that was no one coming for him, as they had promised. An eventuality that seemed more and more likely by the passing hour. After all middle of the summer _would_ have been his birthday, right? Why had no one come yet? Especially as he mentioned in one of his letters that no one would even be there to try and keep him from leaving.

"Does no one care?" the at-other-times-brave Gryffindor could not help but ask the empty room, even as the time ticked closer and closer to the eight o'clock he was waiting for.

But no one answered.

And so Harry waited and waited and waited.

That is until he did not.

...

"Given the tone of the alarm, someone had just come into their creature inheritance." Lucius Malfoy explained as his wand swept over the map that anchored The Net. "The fact it continues to beep and the urgency of it means that the creature is in danger from their transformation. That means they either changed shape which does not agree with their current environment or that are in an environment which is directly harmful to them in their new form."

...

When he had come to he realised that he had fallen from the bed. Why had he fallen from the bed? It must have been the pain for sure. Or was it only after he fell from his bed that the pain started?

His legs felt as if someone was breaking them. His neck felt as if someone was clawing it apart. His eyes were burning. Even his hands were not spared, feeling like someone was trying to tear his fingernails _off_.

'Why does everything hurt so bad?'

And all of a sudden, the external pain was not the problem, because as he was starting to realise whatever it was that was happening, the most pressing problem was that he couldn't breathe. **He couldn't breathe. WHY COULDN'T HE BREATHE?**

He was trying to. So _so_ hard. To the point where his lungs simply _should_ have cooperated, shouldn't they?

But it was to no avail.

He needed help, but where to get it?

'Was that the sound of the door opening?'

Did the Dursleys return? Was it a burglar? Was it a wizard? Weren't Remus and the others supposed to pick him up on his birthday? Maybe they could help him. He only hoped Sirius hadn't decided to tag along, he didn't like the risk of him being caught. Especially when he had almost lost him back at the Ministry. But even Sirius would be welcome if it only meant that the sound of the front door hadn't been a figment of his imagination.

Why was the door so far away? His legs felt so very heavy as Harry tried to drag himself closer to the one source of salvation, the feeling worse for the fact that the skin on them was rubbed raw by the dragging motion. But surely, if he could just get there, then surely someone would come for him.

Someone... Anyone...

"Please."

...

The moment he opened the front door of Privet Drive 4, Dudley Dursley knew there was something wrong about his home.

There was nothing wrong that he could _see_ per se. It was more of an oppressive atmosphere. As if the air was being pushed out of his lungs without nothing physical pressing him down.

It took a moment for him to realise he could hear a noise as well. One he could easily pinpoint to its source.

The upstairs bedrooms.

And given the current almost empty state of the house, it had to be one bedroom in particular.

He didn't lock his cousin in his room, did he? Even if his mother hadn't been adamant he let Harry keep the garden speckless and his father's arguments against that he wouldn't have. But he had been doing that for so long before that summer, maybe he did it without realising it?

Taking the keys from the hall table - just in case - the youngest Dursley ascended the stairs.

With each step, the noise got louder, but not overly so, as if the source of the noise was not as strong anymore. Even then it, however, did not take him long to realise what it was that he had heard.

Thumps on the wood.

Weaker and weaker with each hit, until they were more of a scratchy noise than a hit at times.

And in addition to that, a strange breathy noise.

"Potter?" Dudley asked, even as he took the handle only for his nerves-sweaty palms slipping on it the first try. He thought he heard his cousin's voice for a moment, but why wasn't he answering?

The sounds had gotten noticeably quieter since he had first heard them. What was happening?

Finally, the door opens.

The sound of the palm hitting the doorstep rather than the door was deafening, shocking in its loudness.

The sight of what has become of Harry Potter's body was even more so.

But what shocks Dudley more than anything else is the moment he realises the source of that the strange breathy noise he had earlier was the sound of his cousin _choking._ Why was he choking?

"Ha-Harry?"

As one weak arm tried to reach out to him, the entire posture tilts sideways and exposes Harry's throat... and _holy shit were those gills?_

Dudley had never been of the bravest, however, there was something that made him stay, rather than run as would have otherwise been his first course of action. That screamed over his sense of self-preservation and pushed him towards the preservation of someone else's life.

That one moment where his cousin's eyes seemed to dim as hope turned to the defeat of realisation of who it was that had opened the door. The realisation that Harry honestly thought he was going to leave him there to die because that would certainly be the case, were he to leave the boy there.

Dudley knew he was many things.

Some he could be proud of.

The Smeltings Academy attendee. Junior Heavyweight Inter-School Boxing Champion of the Southeast.

Some much less so.

The rebel. The vandal. The bully.

He wasn't very proud of those anymore, which was why he tried _hard_ to erase those monickers ever since the eye-opening experience the previous summer.

Those... _Dementor things_.

Even if he could not erase the wrongs of the past, he was not going to be the one who stood by and watched his cousin die. He was no murderer. And that was what he would always feel like if he did not at least try to do something.

And so he turned around and ran.

...

There was something nerve-wracking on listening to Lucius Malfoy systematically going through the counties of England one by one. Severus Snape couldn't imagine what it was like for the man. Being the one in charge of solving the situation.

...

It was fortunate that the bathroom was only a short distance across the corridor. And it was yet more fortunate that the bathroom upstairs had a bath rather than the shower cubicle the one downstairs had.

'Cold or hot? Cold or hot? Ah, cold. Didn't Piers mention years back that he accidentally killed his pet fish by putting it into water that was too hot? Dear _God_ , why are you making me think of my cousin as a _fish_?'

Running the water and putting the stopper in the bathtub later, Dudley ran back to the only other person in the house.

How to move him though? There was no way he could attempt the fireman carry - 'No legs to hold onto, oh my _God_.' - so dragging him, it was.

Wrapping his arms under his cousin's from behind seemed easier said than done, when said cousin seemed unresponsive by that time, only small hiccoughing attempts at drawing breath betraying his will to stay alive.

Then there was, of course, the tail.

"Why did you have to grow a freaking _tail_ , Potter?" the youngest Dursley cursed as he dragged his out-of-it cousin across the floor and into the bathroom, where the bathtub was about quarter-full and continuing to fill. While it did not seem like much, something was better than nothing, Dudley surmised.

He needn't have worried about the water level, it turned out, as the biggest hurdle was yet to be overcome - getting Harry into the water. By the time he managed to lift the non-human enough to get him into the bath itself, there was enough water for Harry to have his entire upper half submerged, tail still hanging out.

'Thank you, boxing training.' Dudley thought to himself distantly, being more focused on the still form of his cousin.

He only hoped that he had done enough.

...

The water surrounded him whole - or at least as much of a whole as could fit into the bathtub. Never had he been so grateful to find himself in water.

...

The alarm stopped.

Everything went still and silent.

And then the alarm was sounded anew. Yet not the same.

It was less urgent than before. Longer stretches of time passed between one beep and the next.

"What happened?"

...

It was strange to see a motion similar to that of the first intake of breath of a drowning person done beneath water. But in a sense, Dudley figured, that was exactly what that whole experience must have felt like for Harry. Like drowning above the water.

'Only with the of gills. Not important those, not at all.'

After the few scary seconds where nothing had happened, it was a relief to see his cousin's at-first-panicked expression change into one that could almost be called serene. As if he hadn't been in mortal peril only moments before and instead was simply enjoying the feeling of the water surrounding him.

Finally, after what seemed like eternity Harry's eyes opened.

"Thank you," he said and Dudley could answer him with only a bark of a laugh. His mind was too scrambled right that moment to try to figure out how speech could be heard from under the water.

He had enough trouble not fainting from the adrenaline crash as it were.

...

In the silence of the evening, a person appeared with a crack in the dark alleyway connected to Magnolia Crescent.

The man did not stay long. As soon as he appeared, he already let his legs guide him towards his goal: 4 Privet Drive. There was no time to spare.

Assuming it was one Harry Potter whose distress The Net had picked up there could have been other measures put into place to keep watch of the boy. Yet Severus Snape did not think it was someone of the so-called Light, who had eased the new creature's transition.

He knew what _the Light_ did to those whom they thought _Dark_.

* * *

 **A year and a month, here comes the second chapter... Sorry about that. At least the chapter is longer than the first by way of apology for leaving it on chapter one for so long.**

 **Also two notes about this chapter.**

 **1, I know I actually use the midnight countdown in some of my other fics, but I decided to veer off here.**  
 **2, I'm quite sure that the door to Harry's room opened inwards in the movie, but for the sake of this story, let's pretend opposite, okay?**

 **Next chapter should hopefully arrive sometime in September, as I plan to devote time to other fics, including the STILL-UNPUBLISHED B-day story for this year -_- ... *sigh* I have two ideas for it being worked on, so I might as well ask:**

 **WHICH WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE MORE ATM? "Cinderella AU, ABO Cedric/Harry" or "mostly canon George/Harry with ghost! matchmaker Fred"?**  
 **I gave up the idea of doing the one-shot anyway, so it'd both be maybe 4-10 chapter deal.**

 **Thank you for any and all responses regarding this chapter or the B-day story!**

 **See ya~ ( "-.-)/**


End file.
